It Didn't Happen That Way
by Morganperidot
Summary: The story begins with Billie's release from prison. She learns that what she heard about John Dillinger while she was in prison may not necessarily be true... Complete
1. Chapter 1

It Didn't Happen That Way

By Morganperidot

The day that Billie Frechette was released from prison she went home to her Chicago apartment. The place looked pretty much the way as she remembered it; she was a bit surprised that was the case, because she had figured that the federal agents who had put her behind bars for harboring a fugitive would have gone through her apartment and taken whatever they wanted. Of course, maybe they didn't want anything that a coat-check girl could own.

Billie had decided to move to Wisconsin, and she got to packing right away, throwing into a suitcase the few things she really wanted to keep. Among them were the few things John Dillinger had given her as presents: the coat with the fur collar, a cameo necklace, and a small pocket mirror. It wasn't much to remember him by, and if that was all there was, it might have been easier for her to stay in Chicago.

But there was more than that. For one thing, there were the dreams, both good and bad, in which Johnnie was still alive. She never went a week without dreaming of him pulling up in one of his fast stolen cars, his eyes shining and one of those devious smiles on his lips. And she never went two weeks without one of the nightmares where she heard the gunshots and saw what she had never really seen, Public Enemy Number One John Dillinger lying in the alley by the Biograph Theater, his blood and brain matter spattered on the walls and pavement.

She knew it was mostly Johnnie's fault that things ended that way for him; he could have gone somewhere, hid out, lain low, and waited for things to cool off. But he wouldn't do that. So she blamed Hoover and Purvis for pursuing the wrong man and ending things in the wrong way. Johnnie was a criminal, but he wasn't the worst of his time, not by a long shot. The feds had simply taken the easy way out, choosing to go after Johnnie rather than the more dangerous and slippery mobsters who still roamed Chicago alive and free.

Billie sighed and stopped packing for a moment. It was warm and stuffy in the apartment, so she went to the windows and opened them enough to draw in whatever breeze might come that way. On an end table next to the window she spotted a half full bottle of whiskey. She could see Johnnie drinking out that bottle and setting it back down with a smile. She could still see him everywhere, and that was why she had leave Chicago and go somewhere in Wisconsin where she could lose herself and lose him, until it was like what she had with Johnnie never really happened at all.

The phone started ringing, and Billie looked away from the window. Dread formed in her quickly; her first thought was that it was the feds wanting something more from her. Wasn't the pound of flesh – and the life – they had taken from her already enough? The ringing persisted, and Billie walked over to the phone. "Hello," she said into the handset. There was a long moment of silence, and Billie's anger surged. "Whoever this is, you've gotten all you're going to get from me, you hear?" she spit out. "Don't call here again, understand?" She was taking the phone away from her ear to slam it down on the cradle when she heard the speaker's three words.

"It's me, babe."

Billie stopped breathing for a moment. That was Johnnie's voice, her Johnnie, and that meant that he was waiting for her somewhere. She almost ran to the window to look for his car… But then she remembered that John Dillinger was dead, dead forever, and there was no one waiting for her, not now, and not ever again. That bastard Hoover had seen to that.

She knew what this call was, some cruel hoax by some fed involved in the recording of her calls with Johnnie, someone who thought that playing something like that back to her was funny. "Go to hell," Billie said softly into the phone, and then she laid it down on its cradle. She jumped when the phone started ringing again almost immediately, but she didn't answer it. She wasn't going to play that game. The jerk could call her all night if he wanted to. She would be gone from there soon enough, and when she was, they would never find her again.

* * * * * * * * * *

The honking of a car horn woke Billie from a sound sleep. She sat bolt upright in bed, and when the fuzziness had quickly fled her brain it was replaced with an unmatched fury. She got out of bed and went to the windows; there was a car directly below with its headlights on. "Enough of this," Billie said. She had done the time they had forced her to do, and she had endured the loss of her beloved Johnnie. She was not going to be treated this way during the last few days she spent in their city.

Billie threw her coat over her nightgown and grabbed a baseball bat she kept by the door for protection. She ran down the stairs to the street and straight over to the car sitting there. "Get out of there, you SOB," she said. "What kind of a man does this? How small and pathetic you must be to have to get humor out of a dead man!" The man didn't get out of the car, and Billie couldn't see him through the windshield. "Show yourself!" she shouted. She raised the baseball bat and prepared to smash the car with it. Instead of opening the driver's side door, the man slid across the front seat and pushed open the passenger's side door.

Fiercely angry, Billie walked around the car and looked in the passenger's side. The man inside was wearing a hat and dark glasses, even though it was dark outside. "Who are you?" Billie asked. "What do you want?"

"Go on, get in," the man said.

The sound of his voice made Billie's nerves tingle. No, she thought. It's not him. Whatever this is, however he's doing this, he's not Johnnie. "Who are you?" Billie asked.

The man took off his glasses, and Billie saw those warm brown eyes from her dreams. "Don't you know me, Blackbird?" he asked.

"You're not him," Billie said, but her grasp on reality was slipping. Those eyes, they were her Johnnie's eyes. There was no way to fake that, was there?

His lips curled slightly. "Come in the car, Billie," he said. "I promise I'll be a gentleman."

Billie's eyes filled with tears. "Haven't I been through enough?" she asked. "Why would you do this to someone?"

"You know why, Billie," he said. "I love you. I always have. I said I would take care of you, and I will."

Billie shook her head, but she dropped the baseball bat and got into the car. "He died," she said, the tears streaming down her face. "They shot him in the back in some alley. They were always so afraid of him. They had to shoot him in the back, or they would never have gotten him."

"Close the door," the man said.

Billie pulled the car door closed. "Whatever you're going to do it to me doesn't matter," she said. "I've lost everything. There's nothing else you can take from me."

He put the car into drive and headed through the streets of Chicago. Billie looked out the window as the tears continued to flow. For a long time they were both silent, and Billie realized that she really didn't care what was going to happen next.

"There was a big train score a few months back," he said finally.

"I saw it in the paper," Billie said. She wiped her face with her hands and then wiped her wet hands on her coat. "They caught those guys," she said.

"They caught most of those guys," he said, and she could feel the playful sneer on his lips without looking at him. "Problem is, you can't catch a ghost."

Billie shook her head. "There aren't any ghosts," she said.

"There's me," he said.

Billie was silent for a moment, and then she said, "I don't know who you are or why you're doing this, but you aren't him. They killed him. He's gone."

"Say my name," he said.

"I don't know you," Billie said, and the tears started to well up again.

"Yeah, you do," he said. "Go on now. Say my name."

Billie looked at him. "OK, you want to hear it so badly?" she said. "Here it is then: John Dillinger. But you aren't him. You aren't my Johnnie because my Johnnie is dead. He's dead, and he will always be dead. They blew his brains out in an alley, and he is gone forever!"

He swerved the car to the side of the road and grabbed hold of her. Billie tried to push him off, but he was too strong. "No, I'm not," he whispered in her ear, and then he brought his lips to hers in a firm, forceful kiss. Billie continued to fight him for a moment, and then she finally gave up, not really responding to him but no longer resisting. He leaned back against the seat beside her, and she could see blond hair on his head in the glow of a streetlight. He had a mustache too and some rough stubble around his chin. He was nothing like what her Johnnie looked like, not at all the same, except for those smoldering coffee-colored eyes. She touched his cheek gently and watched as some of the rough edge of desperation in those eyes softened.

"They told me…"

"What they wanted to believe," he said. "You're right that they were afraid, so afraid they never really took a good look at that man on the ground bleeding. They saw what they wanted to see, John Dillinger blown apart with his gun still in his pocket, because in the end they were better, faster, and smarter than the man they called Public Enemy Number One."

"It isn't possible, someone had to know…"

"And if they did, what would they say?" he said. "Do you think Hoover would let their great success story be blown to bits? They knew. Purvis knew. But in the end it didn't matter, because the ghost caught a train out of town and disappeared." He snapped his fingers.

"Can it really be you, Johnnie?" Billie asked.

"What do you think, babe?" he asked.

Billie continued to look at him in the lights of that Chicago street, and slowly but steadily her lips curled into a smile.


	2. Chapter 2

It Didn't Happen That Way: Chapter 2

By Morganperidot

Johnnie drove that fast Ford back to Billie's apartment, and she quickly went upstairs and changed from her nightgown into a blue dress, closed up her suitcase with what was already packed inside, and ran back down the stairs. She was terrified that if she took too long all of this would turn out to be dream and when she got back to the street she would find that the car – and Johnnie – had never been there. But it was, and he was, still behind the wheel of that dark car on that star-filled Chicago night. Billie yanked the passenger's side door open and tossed her suitcase in the back before settling back against the seat breathing heavily. "OK," she said between breaths, "let's go."

Johnnie looked at her. "You ran out of that place like it was on fire," he said.

"Let's go, Johnnie," Billie said.

"There's no one chasing us, babe," Johnnie said. "I'm a ghost, remember?"

"I know that's what you said, but I just want to get out of here, as far away as we can go," Billie said. "We can go out of the country right? You have the money from the train score?"

"Listen, Blackbird, no one knows about me," Johnnie said. "Nothing is ever coming between you and me again."

"Please, Johnnie," Billie said.

He looked at her for a moment longer with those soft brown eyes that she had so easily recognized from her memories and her dreams, even though she had thought the man whom they belonged to was killed long ago in the alley by a movie theater. As each second passed, Billie felt her heart pounding harder and faster inside of her, and she just wanted to be with him and to go away from there forever. She didn't care if Chicago burned to the ground; she never wanted to see it again. Chicago had torn her apart, and the only thing that could truly fix her was to see it disappear forever in the mirrors of Johnnie's car.

"Sure, doll," he said, and he pulled that Ford onto the road. "I have a place in Rockford," he said. "We can spend the night there and decide where we want to go."

"How much money is there?" Billie asked.

Johnnie smirked. "A whole lot," he said. "More than all those bank jobs together. If I'd have known about how it works with the trains I wouldn't have messed with the banks." After a pause he added, "The banks were fun though, back when the boys were still around."

"I was sorry to hear about Red, Johnnie," Billie said.

"Yeah, I thought Red and I would be doing those bank scores and jail breaks forever," Johnnie said. "We were these smooth outlaws pulling these unstoppable jobs. No one could get to us. No one could stop us. No one could kill us."

He fell silent, and Billie looked at him. He was focused on the road, but she sensed that he was reliving those last days with Red Hamilton and maybe trying to work through them to find a way that things could have turned out differently, so Red could have survived like he did. "Johnnie, how…"

"Later, babe," Johnnie said. "I'll tell you all about it later." He glanced at her. "I got you something," he said. "It's in the back."

"You didn't have to…"

"Yeah, I did," Johnnie said. "You're my girl."

Billie smiled and turned around in her seat to look into the back of the car. On the floor behind the driver's seat she spotted a long black box with a red ribbon tied around it. She picked it off the floor, sat back in her seat, and held it in her lap, just looking at it.

"It isn't going to open itself," Johnnie said.

"I know, I just want to hold it for a minute," Billie said.

"Well, if you wait too long I'm going to throw it out the window," Johnnie said.

"No!" Billie said, and she held it against her chest.

"I can still get it there," Johnnie said.

"Fresh," Billie said.

Johnnie laughed. "You won't be saying that later," he said.

"We'll see," Billie said, but she was eager for later as well, when they would finally be alone together in a room again and she could touch him and kiss him and hold him… To keep that train of thought from driving her nuts she brought the box back to her lap and undid the red ribbon, set that aside, and lifted the cover. She gasped when she say what was inside, a gorgeous multicolored silk scarf. "Oh my God, Johnnie!" she said, gingerly lifting it with both hands.

"You like it?" Johnnie asked.

"It's so beautiful, thank you!" Billie said.

"You deserve nice things," Johnnie said. Billie lifted the scarf to put it around her neck, and Johnnie put his hand over one of hers. "Not yet," he said. "I want to be the first one to do that."

Billie smiled. "OK," she said. "Thank you, Johnnie." She put the cover back on the box and held it against her again, looking out the window but not seeing the passing landscape, too busy thinking about what was to come.

* * * * * * * * * *

Johnnie pulled into an alley between two buildings and stopped the car. "We're here," he said. Eyes halfway open, Billie realized she had slept most of the way there. "Time to get out, sleepyhead," Johnnie said. He grabbed the handle of her suitcase and pulled it out of the back. As he did so, Billie caught a glimpse of the gun under his brown jacket.

"So ghosts still carry guns?" she said.

"Smart ghosts do when they need to," Johnnie said. He turned away and headed to the side of the building to the left of the car. When he got there he produced a key from his pocket with his free hand and opened the door, then held that door so Billie could enter the building.

Billie wasn't sure what she had expected, but the inside of the building wasn't much to look it. The hallway ahead of them was dark, with a single buzzing light bulb hanging on a chain and old, stained wallpaper peeling off the walls. Billie thought she saw something on the floor dash into the shadows, and she just stood where she was, frozen.

"Those rats don't eat much," Johnnie said softly from behind her. She felt him slip his hand around hers, and her anxiety eased a bit. He led her down the hall to a door on the right and then fished another key out of his pocket for that door. Billie's heart sank even more when she saw that the room wasn't much better than the hallway had been. Johnnie closed the door and set her suitcase down beside it. Billie stood there for a moment wondering what it was she had gotten herself into. This place was even worse than the one she had been living in. Was this how they were going to be living? "Come with me," Johnnie said. He walked through the main room and into the bedroom, which was the only other room besides a tiny bathroom that she saw as she followed him. She felt disappointment sinking into her at quickly increasing rate.

Inside the bedroom Johnnie was lighting the candles that were set around the room. When he finished, he walked back over to where she still stood in the doorway. "I know it's a dump," he said "but we won't be here long. I promise the night won't be so bad." He took off his hat and tossed it on top a bureau in the corner of the room.

Billie looked at his face and his blond hair in the candlelight, and for a moment she was uncertain again that this man was John Dillinger; even close up, face-to-face, he didn't look like her Johnnie much at all. She touched his cheek. "Why do you look so different?" she asked.

"I had a little work done," he said. He moved closer and put both of his hands on her face. "But I'm still here, babe," he said. "Can you see me?"

Billie stood there in that tiny bedroom in that dump of an apartment and looked at him, into his eyes, into that heart and soul that had reached out to hers and drawn her in to the kind of life she had never expected. She saw it there in him, the persuasion and the passion that he had always had before. This is the same man, her heart told her, pushing past the confusion of what her eyes saw. "Kiss me, Johnnie," she said, and he brought his lips to hers, kissing her firmly, his warmth surrounding her. Billie's eyes drifted closed; she knew that kiss was his, that touch, that body.

"I want you tell me the whole story," Billie said.

"In the morning," Johnnie said.

And Billie agreed that the morning was soon enough.


	3. Chapter 3

It Didn't Happen That Way: Chapter 3

By Morganperidot

Beside him in that dark room, Billie no longer doubted that this man was her Johnnie. He looked different, and this seedy place he had taken her to was much different than where they had gone before his "death". But his intimate touch, both urgent and tender, was undeniably that of her lover, John Dillinger. The FBI could say whatever it wanted about the man they blew away in the alley beside the Biograph, but that man wasn't her Johnnie.

Billie looked at him and wondered how it all happened and what it meant. He had been lying low waiting for her to be released from prison, but now what? Was he going to go back to robbing banks? Would they find themselves back in peril, always looking over their shoulders for someone who wanted to arrest or kill him? She also thought about the train robbery he had mentioned, and wondered why, if he had that money, he was staying in such a god-awful, cheap, rundown nightmare of an apartment.

Restless and unable to sleep, Billie got off the bed, slipped on her dress, and went into the main room where she had left the box with the silk scarf that he had given her in car. In the darkness she lifted the top of the box again and touched the soft, smooth material. She picked the scarf up and held it against her, closed her eyes, and imagined a life where she was surrounded by nice things like that. She knew it was a foolish dream, however; women like her, who worked in the coat check and went to prison for harboring a thief, they didn't live lives like that. She opened her eyes and looked around at the dilapidated apartment. People like her lived in places like this and lived lives that fit that type of place. She sighed and stood up, then turned back toward the bedroom.

Johnnie was standing there in the doorway, candle flames flickering behind him, his hair mussed, the hint of a smile on his lips, looking like a handsome fallen angel freshly admitted to the gates of hell. "What's up?" he asked.

Still clutching the silk scarf, Billie said the first thing that came into her mind, "I just wanted to look at this again."

He sauntered over to her, up close, and gently lifted her face to his with the palm of his right hand. "Do you think I don't know you?" he asked.

"Johnnie, I just…I'm so glad you're alive," Billie said, knowing she was stammering, but needing him to understand that.

"I know that, doll," Johnnie said, "but do you really think that's my only surprise?" He brought his lips to hers and kissed her before she could reply. Then he tugged the scarf out of her grasp and put it around her neck. "You shouldn't underestimate me," he said. "A lot of people have made that mistake recently."

"I won't do it again, Johnnie," Billie said. She had believed he was dead, and that had turned out to be untrue. She was willing to take it on faith that he had another ace up his sleeve. Johnnie grasped her hand and led her back into the bedroom, where she curled up again next to his strong, warm body.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Billie woke the next morning to the heavy knocking sound at the front door of the apartment. She was immediately terrified, especially when she saw that she was alone in the dark bedroom. "Johnnie?" she said quietly, but he was gone. When she moved closer to the nightstand, she saw that his gun was gone as well. She became certain that he had been discovered and the cycle was about to start again, the one where she was tormented by men trying to find him.

Billie heard the front door open, and she shrunk under the bedclothes, overwhelmed by sensations from the past: the pain of too-tight handcuffs, the rough skin on the hands of brutal men miscast to positions of authority, and the painful sting of bright lights shining into her tear-filled eyes. On top of that was the fear that surrounded her like an oppressive cloud, dragging her down to a place where she could no longer breathe. She knew they would be there soon, with their guns and their sneers, laughing at her and making lewd remarks, taunting her for trying to love someone whose brains and skills they resented.

But they didn't come. Finally Billie came out from beneath the blankets, slid off the bed, walked over to the bedroom doorway, and peered out into the main room. She saw Johnnie at the small wooden table with another man, their voices lowered so that she couldn't make out the words, but she could hear Johnnie's angry tone. Johnnie wore a white shirt and dark pants, and the other man was in an expensive-looking gray suit, a fedora perched on his head. He looked like one of those drawings of a gangster from the true crime magazines. She remembered when Johnnie dressed like that, and she wondered for a moment if she would ever see him in a suit again.

"Next time you do something like this, use whatever smarts you have left," Johnnie said. He stood up, glanced briefly in Billie's direction, and then walked to the door. "Now get the hell out of here," he said. The other man walked out with his head bowed. Johnnie closed the door behind him and locked it.

Billie stepped out into the main room. "Who is that man?" she asked. "Is he a cop?"

"He's no one, doll," Johnnie said, "just the delivery boy. Get dressed, and we can get some breakfast."

"Is there trouble, Johnnie?" Billie asked walking over to him. "I mean, if my being here is trouble for you, I don't want that. I would rather…"

"Hey, slow down," Johnnie said. He smiled and put his hand gently against her cheek. "There isn't any trouble, and you're not going anywhere. You got that?"

"Johnnie, I…"

"Tell me you understand," Johnnie said.

"I do, Johnnie," Billie said. "But I want you to be safe."

"I am," Johnnie said. "Things are cool. And I need you with me."

"I'm here," Billie said.

"And not going anywhere," Johnnie said.

"Right," Billie said. "But I want you to tell me how you did this and what's next."

"What's next is breakfast," Johnnie said.

* * * * * * * * * *

The apartment didn't look any better to Billie when they returned from breakfast; it was still disturbingly dilapidated and dingy. Why would Johnnie be in a place like that? She wanted to know, but first she wanted to know how he was anywhere at all. He had put off talking with her about anything serious while they at breakfast at a nearby diner. That place had been small and mostly empty, but it still worried Billie that they were out in public. Johnnie didn't seem troubled at all, and that put her slightly more at ease. Just looking at him, in those warm brown eyes, and seeing the playful curl of his lips made her stomach settle enough to eat a big breakfast.

Back in his apartment she sat on one of the two creaky chairs and waited for him to return from the bathroom. When he did, she asked, "Are you going to tell me?"

Johnnie laughed and pulled the other chair over next to hers. "Yeah, I'm going to tell you, Blackbird," he said. He leaned back in the chair. "There are only a few people who know, but none of them have all of the pieces. I'm the only one who has that, and you are the only one I trust to give them to. If Red were still alive…but he's not. So this is how it is."

He sighed, and Billie sensed that the weight of everyone he'd lost was still crushing his heart. She let him take his time, just sitting there next to him like she had thought she never would again. During those silent moments she thought about that apartment and the money he might have somewhere, and she knew those things didn't matter. All that mattered was this moment together, with the two of them breathing the same air and close enough to touch.

"I was at Anna's place, and it was so hot that day," Johnnie said. "Polly was going to the police station to get a license for something, and I was going to go with her…"

"The police station?" Billie said.

"Yeah, I had the idea that I would just walk in there and be so invisible no one would notice me," Johnnie said. "Probably would have worked too, but before I got out the door Anna called me over and said she needed to talk with me."

Billie had met Anna Sage once, and she hadn't felt comfortable with the woman. It was more than just her profession, though Billie didn't agree much with that. There was an air of trouble around Anna Sage that Billie had recognized the first moment she saw her. She hadn't liked the idea of Johnnie being around that woman, and she hadn't been surprised in prison when she found out that Anna was the one who had betrayed him…or so everyone had thought.

"I sat down at the table with her, and I knew right away that there was something wrong," Johnnie continued. "I wasn't sure what it was, but I knew it was something big. She told me she was going to be deported, and there was something that she could do that might prevent that from happening." Johnnie stood up and turned away. "I got the idea then; she never really said it, but I got it just the same," he said. He took a few steps away and turned back. "I didn't know why she told me what she did until months later when I got a letter from her through some friends of friends," he said. "It all came back to Purvis; he sat with her in his car, and he told her the truth, that he couldn't guarantee that she would stay in the US. If he had said what she had wanted to hear, even if it were a lie, it would have been enough. But he wouldn't do that, and because of that he lost me."

"She would have given you over…"

"Without a doubt," Johnnie said. "But Purvis didn't know how to close the deal. He let me slip away. I gave her money, and that got me the time to do what needed to be done. I knew a surgeon over the border in Wisconsin; he took care of my face. But in the end it was Nitti's guys who tied up the loose ends."

"Frank Nitti?" Billie said. "But I thought…"

"Nitti wanted things quiet, but he didn't necessarily want me dead," Johnnie said. "He knew I had certain skills, and if I wasn't doing them in the headlines they could be useful to him." Johnnie smirked. "It took a lot of whiskey and a lot of talk," he said, "but we came to an understanding. He got a good chunk of the train money, and we were even."

"A good chunk…"

"Not all of it, I promise you," Johnnie said. "And that guy here tonight confirmed that everything is set up with that."

Billie didn't push that, but there was something else she needed to know. "I was told your last words," she said. "No one else could have known…"

"No one is without a price," Johnnie said. "Not even the FBI." He walked back to the chair he had been sitting on, and put his hands on the top of the back of it. "I wish I could have let you know somehow, but I needed this to play out. They couldn't think that you knew about the switch. I'm sorry about that. I've been sorry since that night."

Billie could see it in his eyes, the truth of it, and she could imagine him imagining her getting that news. There was so much pain there, but it was pain for nothing, for something that never happened. "Who died that night, Johnnie?" Billie asked. "Who was in that alley outside the Biograph?"

"It was one of Nitti's guys," Johnnie said. "Someone who had snitched on one of his operations but didn't know that Nitti knew. He thought he was doing a favor for the boss, and he was, just not in the way he thought. In her letter, Anna said that after the gunfire she started to slip away, but she caught a glimpse of Purvis's face in the light from a street light and she could see that he knew. He told everyone that it was me, but he knew the truth from the moment that man went down."

Johnnie walked around the chair and sat back down. "I did the train job, and since then I've been lying low," he said. "This place has been good enough for me, but now that you're back with me…"

"All I care about is you," Billie said.

"My girl deserves good things," Johnnie said, "so let's pack what we want to keep and get out of here."

"For good?" Billie asked.

"Yeah, doll," Johnnie replied, "for good." He turned on the radio and set it to a station playing music, and they threw their few possessions into one suitcase each that Johnnie took out to the Ford without looking back. Johnnie took Billie to a private plane that flew them out of the country, to a private villa with a fabulous ocean view. And after believing she had lost everything with Johnnie's death, Billie found she had more than she had ever imagined, and yet what she had told him was the core truth of it – all she really cared about was him.


End file.
